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UK Music Fans Can Copy Own Tracks
An anonymous reader writes "BBC news is reporting that music fans in the UK won't have to fear litigation from the British Phonographic Industry. Peter Jamieson, chairman of the British Phonographic Industry, said 'consumers would only be penalized if they made duplicates of songs for other people.'" From the article: "Mr Jamieson also called for Apple - which makes the popular iPod portable music player - to open up its iTunes software so it is compatible with the technology of other manufacturers. Apple applies a digital protection system to its downloads, which means they are not usually compatible with other companies' devices. "
A P2P network for file sharing can hardly be called carelessly putting them somewhere - you have install the software, run it, and tell it what directories/files to share.
-dave
http://millionnumbers.com/ - own the number of your dreams
Let's make this a bit less outrageous with some real world examples. Recorded music is easily lost or stolen, and, if left in a car, are often stolen. Therefore the wise person is going to make a copy of an original copy on CD or tape or whatever. If, at some point the duplicate gets lost or stolen, and i keep the original, if this breaking the license. One can extend this to an iPod, with every recording one owns. If the iPod got stolen, does the industry expect the original to be destroyed. Even MS Play for Sure allows music to be copied to a Play for Sure device, and I don't think that the song is destroyed if the device is lost, although this could change as the exact user rights seems to be fluid. The Apple crippled music format allows a song to be copies to nearly unlimited iPods.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
From TFA:
"We believe that we now need to make a clear and public distinction between copying for your own use and copying for dissemination to third parties," said Mr Jamieson, whose organisation represents the UK's record labels.
He told the Commons select committee for culture, media and sport that he wanted to "make it unequivocally clear to the consumer that if they copy their CDs for their own private use in order to move the music from format to format, we will not pursue them".
Will the RIAA now pressure the US to have the UK kicked out of the WTO? Will we be invadng the UK next for "IP terrorism"? If visiting UK citizens bring their copied music with them on a visit, will they be arrested/fined by US Customs, their copied music confiscated?
Between the French and the UK, the US copyright-cartels and the DRM-pushers have been receiving some major blows. I don't seriously believe the US would invade either the UK or France. (Mostly because they have way too many things that go "BOOM".)
I do have to wonder what consequences the cartels will pressure the US into trying to apply to the UK and France over these actions in trying to free their citizens from the Damocles' Sword of copyright-criminalization by simply copying for their own use what they already bought and paid for and insisting on fairness and interoperability in DRM schemes.
This ought to be interesting to watch. I hope that by raising objections to the UKs' and Frances' actions, they wake a few people up in the US as to the freedoms they are losing, and the raping of the Public Domain and *our* culture for profit.
Cheers!
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
My understanding is the DRM was "invented" so that the Content owners can restrict the device in which their content/music plays. Or to rephrase, the DRM is there *BECAUSE* RIAA insisted on it as a pre-condition for access the catalog. If the British Music Labels want the music to be "compatible" on all devices, am sure Apple will have NO problem offering DRM free AAC music. Right? As long as they offer their catalogs without stipulating DRM be there, wouldn't Apple be able to offer the downloads in UK drm-free AAC? To me this whole article is a sham.. A case of the pot calling the kettle black! Just.. a ... Jester
I mean, its nice for this guy to say that BPI won't sue - but whats to stop other copyright holders using the statutes of law, as they are written, to prosecute those who are quite clearly breaking it by making personal copies.
The BPI doesnt own copyright on all music, and so they have absolutely no standing to make any general claims around what UK citizens do and do not have to fear when copying music to their iPods.
For example, if I publish a piece of music on a CD and sell it to joe blow at a gig, and joe blow ends up with it on their iPod, then they have broken the law. I would be well within my rights to bring a case against them, under UK law, and the BPI has nothing to do with it.
The BPI, by spreading this misconception that all music in the UK is free of personal use restrictions is effectively advocating the piracy of works over which it has no rights whatsoever.
I mean, maybe these corporations and institutes figure that because they bought the laws initially they should be free to interpret them any way they like, but in my view they need to make it very clear that this waiver only applies to BPI-licensed materials, and that other content is still protected by the statutes as written.
You are *not* free to copy any music you like, for personal use.
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
UK copyright law has several "fair dealing" defences to charges of copyright infringement, written into the law. They're somewhat vague, but allow the non-commercial use of extracts for personal study, reviews, criticism or news reporting. Time shifting, i.e. recording off the radio or television, for the purpose of watching at a later date then erasing have been judged by the courts to be another fair dealing defence.
To date, there has been no such ruling or written exemption for making duplicates for the purpose of backups or personal use such as media shifting. It's long been assumed that if such a case came to court, media shifting would be added to the list; but it certainly wasn't guaranteed.
Don't forget, the large media conglomerates DID try to make video recorders illegal in the UK. It certainly wasn't beyond the realm of possibility that music companies would try to get mp3 players banned, or prosecute individuals for media shifting, which remains technically illegal under UK law. Their argument would go somewhat like this:
"Digital download services are now easily available. iPods and WMA players can be easily filled up with legally downloaded music. Just because someone has an old tape of an album doesn't mean they get to download the CD version for free, they have to buy their favourite music from us in their preferred new format. The defendant does not have the legal right to copy our CDs by 'ripping', and we would like to make clear that people still have to buy music in the new format - whether they want it on their WMA player, their ringtones, or their computer, each of these devices have music specifically designed for their optimum playback, and they are not interchangable. Give us lots of money for every single device you want to play our music on."
Media companies like Sony BMG, EMI and Koch have been explicitly putting anti-computer corruption into their CDs for some time, to try to prevent ripping. The fact that it's hard to do this on CDs, and so far all they've achieved is a fairly famous root kit, a few damaged macs, and a lot of people forced to learn about ripping just to play their CDs in their car-players doesn't matter to them. It's certainly not beyond the realms of possibility that they would take more direct legal action to sue rippers, and sellers of devices that 'encourage' ripping CDs.
Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.